printing to a network printer in fedora core 2

[amosgeoff 0]

Hi everyone,

could someone please help. I have just installed Fedora Core 2 but have failed to intall a canon iR2800 network printer. The printer has a NIC with an IP, and is connected to the network, windows PCs can print to it. How do I get FC2 to print to the same printer? any ideas?

[BSchindler 0]

Hi amosgeoff and welcome.

 

Most network laser printers have an administrator's interface built in which is accessed by pointing your browser to the ip address of the printer.

 

Usually you access the admin page by pointing your browser to the ip address. On these pages you will find some very helpful information. Do this on Windows and you can print some of the more important settings. These printers have built-in spoolers and you want to find the queue name. Additionally, you want to know if this is a postscript or PCL (printer control language).

 

If the canon does not have access this way, go to the physical printer and get into the "Setup" menu (or whatever it is called). Print the configuration out.

 

On the Linux Box, go to "System Settings" -> "Printing". This will start the CUPS Printer Configuration tool.

 

Select "New", wait a bit while it loads printer tables, etc. You will see a screen "Add a new print queue". Click "Forward".

 

In the "Name" field you will see "printer". In the "Comments" section you could put "Canon iR2800". Click "Forward".

 

Now we are in "Queue type". In the "Select a queue type" select

"Networked UNIX (LPD)". You will see two fields: "Server" and "Queue". In Server put the ip address of the printer. In Queue put the queue name you got from the administration page of the printer itself (above). If you cannot find the name, use "printer". Click "Forward".

 

On the "Printer Model" page scroll down to postscript or PCL. If unsure, try postscript first. Most manufacturers support postscript and it will probably work okay for you here. Click "Forward".

 

Now click "Finish". You will be asked if you want to print a test page, click "Yes" and check your printer.

 

My guess is that this will work just fine. If not you may want to try PCL. The manual for the canon will help you out.

 

Lastly, assuming you are printing okay, click the "Edit" button on the CUPS Tool. On the last folder, "Driver Options" you may want to click "Convert text to postscript". This way if you use lpr to print a text file it will be converted to postscript for printing.

 

That's basically all there is to it. Hope it works out for you.

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

 

[amosgeoff 0]

Hi Bill You are a Genius!

It worked like a charm. All along I've been trying to install using CUPS with a browser "http://localhost:631/admin" , but it would install and print blank pages and junk. I was getting confused at which options to choose for "device", and "device url" as most of them seemed be the right one.

Also it seems CUPS doesn't have drivers for canon coz it wasn't listed among the available drivers. Plus I didn't know what port to use on the printer. Most printers seem to use 9100, apparently canon doesn't mine uses 515.

Anyway I think CUPS is a great tool if only they could add a feature that auto-detects the port on the printer. I also think that canon should improve their support for Linux, I downloaded a file from their site but failed to install it. It kept crashing at some point.

Well you have made my day. I had almost given up, a big thumbs up to you mate!

[BSchindler 0]

Hi amosgeoff,

 

Glad to help. Even "gladder" that it worked without any hitches. Often I find the browser based tools to be a bit buggy. But, I run command line alot too.

 

Bill